


Give You My Life

by SoKinky_SoChrome (EmberSkies)



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Death, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Introspection, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-22
Updated: 2015-07-02
Packaged: 2018-04-05 14:52:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4184022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberSkies/pseuds/SoKinky_SoChrome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fill for MadMaxKinkMeme. </p><p>Prompt: Capable/Nux, Furiosa/Max, Nux/Furiosa, WHOMEVER: Hozier - "Take Me to Church"<br/>(http://madmaxkink.dreamwidth.org/450.html?thread=126658#cmt126658)</p><p>An introspective little songfic, more prose drabble than actual story. Nux reflects on the death of his father-figure/god, his life, and his relationship with Capable in his last few minutes of life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Absolutes

"He’s dead! The Immortan’s dead!" the words come and the war boy can barely register them. His God, dead. He knew, of course, on some level, that The Immortan Joe was just a man, but when you're watching yourself and your friends die by inches and someone offers some semblance of hope, you grab hold with both hands. The Immortan would smile upon them and say, “Daddy loves you,” and it fills a hole so deep that the gratitude will drive you to do everything, anything he asks. You believe, with all you have, because what else is there? But in the darkness, when he had given in to his own weakness and she had offered him the simple gift of her touch, he had begun to believe in something brighter.

_I should've worshiped her sooner._

He looks at her, sitting beside him all shine and fire, and feels his chest swell with an emotion he doesn't yet have words for. He knows she'll give him the words later, when they are safe and quiet again, and other words too. Words he can believe in, not lies made of death and white powder but truths about life and green things. How could he ever have mistaken Joe's empty promises for the celestial grace found in her gentle hand?

_If the heavens ever did speak, She's the last true mouthpiece._

And it's good, so good, to have something like this to follow. He’s spent more of his years dying than living now, feeling his blood thin and the lumps slowly close around his throat. Surrounded by death, living for death, everything about him is death and destruction. Falling deeper and deeper into the cult of the V8, until he really believed that The Immortan could be the savior of humanity he claimed.

_Every Sunday's getting more bleak, fresh poison each week._

The Dag says she thinks The Immortan was making the boys sick on purpose. That he sickened them so that their shortened lives would burn brighter, easily and readily sacrificed to his cause. That their tumors and poisoned blood came from the paint. But The Dag says a lot of things, mad and distant, and some are true and some are half-true and some are maybe dreams.

_We were born sick, heard them say it._

He’s not really sure what to believe anymore, but Capable says that’s okay. That maybe they can figure it out together. “You can live a whole life on ‘maybe’ and ‘what if,’” she says with a little smile.

_My church offers no absolutes._

It sounds like hope. A lifetime to get to know each other, to explore each others’ minds and wants and dreams and skin. Being close to her feels so good, so warm and alive. A half-life like him isn’t meant for it, but she’s promised him that later there are things she wants to show him, things she wants to show herself.

_She tells me, "Worship in the bedroom."_

He knows, on a certain level, what she’s offering, and what it must cost her to think of it. He wants to be worthy of her gentleness. To show her her own brightness, the way she lights everything up. She’s better than a perfectly tuned engine, than clean water, better than Valhalla.

_The only heaven I'll be sent to is when I'm alone with you._

She spoke once of destiny. He doesn’t regret his life, not a single moment of it, especially now that it has led him to her. A lifetime of dying has made his time precious, and so he knows to cherish every moment of it right up until the glorious end.

_I was born sick, but I love it._

The thought of the end does concern him, though. She and the others have been kept sheltered, given clean air and green food and pure water, and could live very long lives indeed. He’s still only a half-life, condemned to death by his own betraying blood. But what he feels for her is already so strong, so powerful. There is nothing she could ask of him he wouldn’t do. If she wanted, he would gladly die for her. If she wants him to live, well, perhaps he can yet find the strength.

_Command me to be well._

They’re coming up close to the bottleneck now, and the plan is solidifying. They’ll move to the Gigahorse and he’ll crash the War Rig to cover their escape. He thinks he can make it, if he’s very quick and very clever and perhaps also very lucky. It surprises him, how much he is looking forward to living. To the end of this battle, and to peace and quiet. He wonders, for the first time, if it is possible for him to grow old. He steadies the War Rig, matching pace with the Gigahorse so the women can cross safely, something like a prayer in his heart.

_Amen._

Capable is the last to go, and he reassures her as best he can. “Go on. Once you’re safe, I’ll jam the throttle and follow you. Go.” And he sees the doubt in her, but she gathers her courage like she always does and rises, putting on a brave smile as she grips his shoulder like a promise. And he nods, and wraps his hands tighter around the wheel. He’ll keep her safe. That’s all he wants, for whatever time he has left, he wants to spend the rest of his life keeping her safe.

 _Amen_.

Forever.

_Amen._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh man, I haven't written songfic in literally more than a decade, I feel like a teenager getting into their first fandom again. This is just the first verse, there's at least one or two more parts I'm still tweaking the wording for. I'll get 'em up eventually.


	2. Lies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nux reflects briefly on the past, and what's true and what isn't.

He remembers, vaguely, being small. Tiny, in fact, more whelp than pup. He’d been looking for his father, he remembered that, after mama went so still and silent and cold in the storm. He remembers the startling sensation of falling, and then the jerk of being caught and tossed up in the air to safety. He remembers getting his name, shaving his head, being painted for the first time. And then he remembers seeing Him for the first time. Big, and powerful, with an impossibly large grin. “Daddy loves you,” He’d said. He remembered the feeling of joy and belonging, being part of this massive family of brothers. He would have done anything for the Immortan’s approval.

_I’ll worship like a dog at the shrine of your lies._

From the day he'd been taken up on the platform, he'd had a reputation. "A tough nut to crack," they'd said. Brave, ballsy little fucker. He was a good War Boy. He took to machinery as easily as walking, able to disassemble and rebuild just about anything.  He remembers later on, when he finished building his first car, a beautiful little deuce coupe. He'd never seen anything so shine in his life as what he'd just built with his own hands. He celebrated her completion by having the schematic of her gorgeous V8 engine block scarified on his chest. The memory of that procedure is seared in his memory, white-hot as the blades that cut into his skin again and again, tiny parallel lines that would run together into something bigger. The pain was intense, and equally intense was his joy. He'd never felt so alive as in that moment. He wore that scar like a talisman. He didn't understand his own body, all the ways it was beginning to betray him, but he knew that engine, could fix anything wrong with her in his sleep. Easy as breathing. Easier, now.

_You can sharpen your knife._

The completion of his car couldn't have come at a better time - his was beginning to run out. He'd waited his whole life for this, to be big enough, strong enough, good enough to ride into battle. It was a rush, feeling the growl of the engine, the crunch of sand under his tires, the drums pounding in his bones, being there to Witness the death of real warriors, brave and true. He would join them soon enough. The Immortan had promised them glory - war and food and drink and road, beside brothers-in-arms stretching all the way back to the beginning of history. We live, we die, we live again.

_Offer me my deathless death._

He's seen so many incredible battles in the time since. So many glorious deaths. His time was getting shorter, he knew, needing blood more and more often. The tumors closing tighter around his throat. Yesterday, when he'd heard the drums start up, he'd been afraid. Left behind, he would die quietly in the Citadel. Sick, and alone. A cowardly death, unworthy of Valhalla. It had taken every ounce of his strength to wrest back the course of his life, asserting his position over Slit despite how tired he was, despite the ache in his bones. As he'd cut the hole in the coupe's door for the blood line, he'd known this would be his last ride. It was time to go. He'd prayed for strength, and the opportunity to die well.

_Good God, let me give you my life._

Hours later, when the adrenaline had drained from his system, sore and tired and defeated, he'd been left with something unexpected. War Boys are not meant for softness, not designed for gentleness, but there he had lain in War Rig, this impossible creature just across from him. With just the gentle reach of her hand, his whole world had shattered. It felt like blasphemy. It felt like a blessing.

_I'm a pagan of the good times._

She looked, he thinks, like the rising dawn. Brightness surrounded by fire, red and gold and other colors he doesn't know the names of. And what a dawn. So much is new to him, both in her and in himself. Changing.

_My lover's the sunlight._

Even now, moving carefully across the hood of the speeding rig, she's radiant. Fearless, confident, powerful. How the hell did he get this lucky? There's nothing he's done in his entire life to deserve to know her, let alone have her care about him in return.

_The Goddess by my side._

Slit called him a traitor, the disbelief and betrayal written plain on his face. Before this, he'd always been faithful, devoted. But from the moment Capable had walked into his life, he'd been willing to throw it all away. Change was inevitable, really. Being with her required him to be something different, something new. So he had laid his old self on the altar of Capable, trusting her to help him fill in the hole left behind.

_She demands a sacrifice._

She hadn't disappointed. He was changing, had already changed so much in so little time. This new Nux was willing to leave everything behind and drive off into the unknown, searching for life and safety. As they'd ridden across the Salt Flats, the Vuvalini explained that it had once been an ocean, water stretching further than the eye could see. He remembered then, Angharad had once asked him, "who killed the world?" He was beginning to understand.

_Drain the whole sea._

But now they had hope. Clean water from the Citadel, seeds to grow, all those people. It would take time and work, but together they would build something new. Safety. Peace. Green. Life.

_ Shiny. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this bit took so long, I let myself get hung up on a handful of lines before finally going "fuck it, just cut them and post the damn chapter." The last part will be up immediately though, as I actually finished it before this one.


	3. Amen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You knew it was coming. The end of the song.

It’s blasphemy, he thinks again. What he feels for her, the way nothing in the world has ever shined as brightly, who he thinks he might want to become for her sake. Just a short time ago, he would have been disgusted with what he has become. It’s wrong. She’s wrong. Nothing has ever been this right. She is sweetness and fire and water and light and chrome and he wants with a gentle fierceness he doesn’t understand.

_No sweeter innocence than our gentle sin._

For the first time in his life, he thinks he’d like to be more than a War Boy. He’s already a mechanic, one of the best black thumbs there is. He’s good at fixing cars, maybe he can learn to fix other things too. How much harder than building an engine block is building a life? He can’t remember ever wanting anything as badly as he wants to find out. To see who he is under the paint and scars, what remains of the little boy who was so dearly loved.

_Then, I am human._

She’s expressed an interest in taking him back to the vault, no longer a prison, but a stronghold. There’s a pool set in the floor, he’s told, not for drinking but for washing. She wants to take him there and take away the paint and the grease and the wasteland dust and just...see. Strip him bare and lay him out before her, fully exposed. He knows, without her saying, that his heart will lie as open before her as his body, and with the burning touch of her blessed hands, she will strip away his old life and mold him into something more.

_Then, I am clean._

Enough navel-gazing. It's time to get going. He looks around, searching for just the right place to crash the rig. There. He doesn't know anything about science, math, physics, but he knows cars and he knows how they crash. The angle is perfect. He grips the wheel like a prayer.

_Amen._

He can see it unfold in his head. Line up the crash, jam the throttle, leap daringly at the last moment, sit down beside her and pull her into his arms, ride off into the sunset together.

_Amen._

He’s going to live. All of them will.

_Amen._

And then Rictus, who should be dead, rises from nowhere and attacks again. Nux presses on the brakes, lets the Gigahorse pull away so that Rictus cannot reach them. The further the other vehicle gets, the safer the women are, and the more doomed Nux is. He looks in awe at the hulking figure of the man he considered - maybe still does - his big brother.

_Take me to church._

Ah, Rictus, poor simple Rictus, who would do anything for his father, absolutely anything. Probably doesn't know yet that the man he's fighting for is gone. He wonders if Rictus knows his father was just a man, like any other, old and sick and mortal.

_Worship like a dog at the shrine of his lies._

He watches with a mix of disbelief and fascination as the larger War Boy simply tears the engine away from the Rig, tossing it like a pebble. It's not like he really thought he had a chance, but there went any hope of catching up with the others and getting away. He takes a deep breath and lets it go, wheezing past Larry and Barry. He's calm. Well, mostly. There is a small, frantic part of him beating wildly against his ribcage, screaming, don't let her down. He'd told her he was coming. He'd meant to stay by her side and protect her until the life ran out of his body. He doesn't want his last words to her to be a lie. Disappointing her would an irrefutable black mark against his soul.

_Tell you my sins_

He locks eyes with her, trying his best to communicate how badly he wanted to live. How much he wanted to live for her, with her. All these years trying and failing to achieve a glorious death, and now, when he had finally decided to live, here it is. The most glorious death, the most righteous cause. Bitter irony. "Witness me," he whispers.

_You can—_

And oh, his heart aches at her tiny nod, the determined set of her shoulders. She's so strong. So very strong, his beautiful goddess, stronger than he could ever have believed of someone so soft and kind and bright. He breaks contact with her shining eyes to focus on driving the rig. He gets one shot at this. Only one chance to keep them all safe. Kill Rictus, silence the Doof Wagon, stop an army. Easy.

_—sharpen your knife._

Now. He wrenches the wheel, bracing hard. He can't see through the dust, but he can feel her gaze, steady and unblinking. He has a brief moment to wonder what having this woman Witness his death will do to his soul. Perhaps there is something besides war eternal on the roads of Valhalla. He's heard the Vuvalini talk of a their dead going to place of ease and plenty, where all is green and growing. He'd like that. He will go there and make a place for them, and when the women's time has come, after long lives well lived, they will know they are Awaited in the Green Place. Please, let him go there.

_Deathless death..._

The sound of crunching metal is deafening. The ground is rushing up at him and to his shame, he is afraid. He closes his eyes and fills his mind with her, the smell of her hair and the softness of her skin and the impossible strength and gentleness of her hands. She will live, all of them will, their goodness powerful enough to maybe save this barren world. He is grateful to die for them.

_ Good god, let me give you _


End file.
